


One Could Hope

by im_the_king_of_the_ocean



Series: Healing Music Suite No. 1: Love Affair of a Museum Curator and a Doctor [14]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/F, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 05:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_the_king_of_the_ocean/pseuds/im_the_king_of_the_ocean
Summary: Nomura and Barbara lived a happy, peaceful life.Then Barbara was bitten by a werewolf.Now all Nomura can do is hold onto the hope that one day she'll come back.





	One Could Hope

Nomura pauses in front of her door.Her hand holds the key just outside the lock.She feels it again.The prickle at the back of her neck.The sense that she’s being watched.Barely moving her head, she glances up.A shining, full moon sits in a cloudless sky.Nomura knows what that means, and the knowledge causes her heart to ache.

She waits, but nothing more happens.If she doesn’t go in, it will be strange.She can’t be sure what will happen then.She needs to keep acting like everything’s normal.No matter how much that hurts.It’s the only chance they truly have.

Nomura takes a deep breath, unlocks her door, and walks inside.Her footsteps echo through the empty stillness of the house.She ignores the longing that rises in her chest.Yes, when there was someone else living there, that person often got home later than her, but still.Just knowing she always _came back_ made the house feel a little less empty to Nomura.

Nomura _doesn’t_ think about _her_ smile, _her_ laugh, or _her_ warmth.She can’t.The longing for them will cloud her thoughts.It’s exhausting.So exhausting.Too exhausting.

She goes to make herself some tea.

* * *

Concealed in the shadows of the shrubbery outside, a reddish-brown wolf regards the house.Her eyes are an uncanny blue; the only indication she’s not exactly what she seems.A chilly breeze ruffles her fur.She ignores it.

Barbara wants to go home.To walk through the front door, put her keys in the usual spot, to find her (ex)wife, and wrap her arms around her.To kiss Nomura until she laughs.To dance around the house with her.To feel like they had. _Before._

She can’t do that.Never.Not even on nights that aren’t the full moon.The full moon will always, _always_ come.Over time, Barbara has managed to gain more and more control during her time as a wolf.She knows how to hunt now.She has territory deep in the woods where it’s unlikely humans will stumble across her.She goes there for the transformation itself.The urges are always greatest in the first hours.She hunts.She eats.She sustains herself.She doesn’t hurt anyone.

That doesn’t mean she _can’t_.

Barbara rises, takes one last look at the house, turns, and strides away.She’s never lost control.Not yet.But she’s seen for herself what happens.

Once upon a time, there was a critically injured man in an Emergency Room.He’d been hit by a truck and somehow managed to survive.The driver brought him in.The man had been panicky.As a doctor, Barbara tried her best to calm him, to tend to him.He bit her.He hadn’t meant to.He apologized profusely, begged her forgiveness.Then, he ran off, despite knowing, with his injuries, he wouldn’t get far.His corpse was found a week later.

Barbara bandaged her bite wound, and tried to move on.She managed to.Until the full moon.

She didn’t remember much from that first time.She’d been home.She’d felt weird.Nomura worried about her catching a cold and fussed.Then pain.Nomura’s scream.The rest was foggy.She’d woken up naked in the middle of their bedroom, surrounded by broken belongings.Nomura had locked her in, and fled to a motel.

When they reunited after that night, Nomura grabbed Barbara’s hands, squeezed them, and promised they’d figure out a way through this.Together.

Barbara waited until Nomura left for work, and then she herself left.She didn’t know where she was going, but she did know she wasn’t going back.She could never go back.No matter how much she longed too.

* * *

Nomura’s tea sits forgotten on the kitchen table when the sun rises.She wakes at dawn, every muscle in her body aching from an uncomfortable night on the couch.She doesn’t sleep well these days, but it’s worst on full moon nights.Night when she knows Barbara is out there somewhere. _Hurting_.

She checks her phone.As per usual, there’s a few messages from Jim.He asks the same questions he always does.She gives him the same answers she always does.She wonders if she should tell him the feeling she gets during the full moon, the feeling that Barbara is close, _watching_ , but never does.Nomura doesn’t want to raise his hopes.It took more than a year for her to convince him to go to college (and even then he hadn’t gone far).Raising his hopes would just bring him back to Arcadia, to where his life, like hers, would be on hold in an agonizing waiting game.She couldn’t let him do that.She _knew_ Barbara wouldn’t want her son to do that.

Nomura sighs.She puts her phone down.It rings.She snaps it back up.

“Hello?”

“…”

“Barbara, is that you?If it’s you, please, _say something_.”

“…”

“Please, _please,_ listen.It wasn’t your fault.None of it was your fault.Just, _come home_.”Nomura pauses.Her heart thunders.Every moment she’s not saying something feels like a moment where the person on the other end will hang up.“I love you,” Nomura whispers.“I love you so much.That hasn’t changed, and it never will.Come home, and I promise we will work through this. _Together_.”

There’s what sounds like a cry from the other end.The line goes dead.

Nomura squeezes her eyes shut.Opens them.Blinks away tears.Maybe her words were enough.Maybe Barbara would show up on their doorstep later that day.

One could hope.


End file.
